Born: 17 May 1893
Died: 21 May 1924
Les Dinning was a member of the teaching staff at Mosman Public School who enlisted with his colleague John (Jack) Henry Reid on 31 August 1914 which was less than three weeks after Australia became involved in World War 1.
He and Jack Reid were in the 1st Battalion at the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915. Les received a bullet wound to his arm (not recorded in his service file) that day. The next day Jack received a serious head wound which ultimately led to his return to Australia in 1916 after treatment in Alexandria, Egypt and then England.
Jack wrote to Les Dinning’s father, the Reverend Benjamin Dinning, the Methodist minister at Lindfield, and to his parents about the lead up to the landing and the situation at Gallipoli before he was wounded. He tells how Les’s actions saved his life before he was evacuated to Alexandria. The story was retold around the 20th anniversary of the landing.
Les was again wounded in June 1915 and, more seriously, in August 1915, at the Battle of Lone Pine. His letter to friend, Arthur Wesley Wheen, written while recovering in the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Madros, Lemnos, Greece, provides a detailed description of the preparations for that battle.
Les rejoined his battalion in late September 1915. By the time of the evacuation from Gallipoli in December 1915, he had been promoted to Corporal. He was promoted to Sergeant two months later.
The 1st Battalion was transferred to France in March 1916. In a letter to his father he graphically recounts his "narrow escapes" during the fighting by his Battlion between 23 and 25 July 1916 at the Battle of Pozieres:
"I have once more come out without a scratch from another modern hell in the fight at Pozieres. Certainly I had some narrow escapes, very narrow in fact, and at times I marvel how I escaped without injury. The second night we were subjected to a very intense bombardment; 6in and 9in high explosive shells were literally rained on us, and it was only the dogged determination of the Australians that enabled us to hold the position. Once when I was crouched under the parapet of our very poor trench, a shell skimmed the top of the trench and burst in the back or parados of the trench, killing outright two of my men, wounding a third one, and burying the rest of us. When I dug myself out and two or three others, I found I was intact, but my nerves rather shaky.
“We then ran to another part of the trench for protection. I hadn't been there more than five minutes when another shell, partially blinding me with its flash, burst just in front of me. When I dug myself out I found I was again intact, but the sergeant-major in a dugout two yards away from me was calling out piteously for stretcher-bearers, with a very badly broken leg. I again ran to another part of the trench, which I thought might be free from shells, but hadn't been there many minutes when another shell burst quite close again burying three or four of us, but doing no other damage. At this point the bombardment slackened, and with nerves very shaky I got into another part of the trench, and rested till morning.”
Les was wounded for the fourth time 10 days later on 20 August 1916, when his Battalion was under heavy artillery bombardment in the front line at Pozieres. His serious chest wounds required extensive treatment in England before he eventually returned to Australia as a “cot case” in August 1918.
Before and after his discharge from the AIF, he continued to receive treatment at Randwick and Royal Prince Alfred Hospitals and Cannonbury Soldiers Home, Darling Point. The after effects of his injuries eventually caused his death in May 1924. [JSB]
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